Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
Dedicated Chrome OS tablets have been rare, but the OS has had a tablet mode for a long time. There were some ugly, low-spec Chromebooks for the classroom, and then we had the HP X2 and the Pixel Slate. The X2 was not a true tablets, but it worked well, and the Slate was powerful, but it 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110 888-739-5110
It feels like a century ago now, but when the Lenovo Chromebook Duet was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020, it drew a lot of attention because it seemed like someone finally got it right and gave us the Chromebook tablet we deserved. It didn't skimp on the storage. It had a keyboard and kickstand in the box.
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It came at a good price for a mid-range Chromebooks or tablets: $279-$299 depending on your storage option. The only question left was whether or not it could deliver the proper experience for the Chrome OS tablets we've been waiting for.
I'm happy to say that the Duet is the perfect couch companion for casual research, reading, and Reddit, and it's the Chrome tablet I'd been dreaming of.
Leave your laptop in the home office and use this nifty little device on the porch or couch. The screen is great, but there will be a few hangs and stutters, but the battery will never leave you hanging.
The battery life is amazing.
The keyboard and kickstand are in a box.
The screen is great for reading and watching videos.
The keyboard is floppy.
There are still bugs in the software.
There is only one port and no jack.
In the middle of 2020's massive Chromebook shortage, retailers have been able to keep the Duet in stock and at a reasonable price, unlike most budget models. This has made it one of the few best entrants under $500 that's remained widely available for purchase and is resistant to the price most other budget and mid-range Chromebooks are seeing right now.
The Duet has been out for 18 months, and you can usually find the 64GB models for $200 at Amazon and Walmart. Best Buy's 128GB configuration is still seeing regular discounts down to $250 (from $300) while 128GB models on Amazon tend to be in the $300-$450 range. The Duet is $150, but if you want the ruggedized education cousin of the Lenovo 10e, the price has been slashed to 99 dollars. If a USI stylus is included in the box, the Duet can be had for as little as $230.
Finally, a Chrome device did well.
The shape of the Chromebook duet.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
The Duet is a small, thin, and light device that is perfect for holding on the couch or on the back porch, as it has a large screen that is perfect for viewing social media while relaxing. The screen can get bright enough to read outside if you're not in full Florida sunshine, but I only used it as an e-reader in bed for most of the time because of the low brightness.
The back of the Duet has a two-tone look that I like. I kept the kickstand on because the fabric back gave me a more comfortable grip for hours and hours of reading, even though I was willing to ditch the keyboard for my reading and game sessions. I don't have to hold the tablet up the entire time because the kickstand is propped up on my knees.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
The battery is 7,000mAh. I was not sure that the size battery would be able to keep up with me, but I have been completely surprised. I got 3 days of mixed use out of the box, and have gotten 2 days per charge since then.
Light use with one or two tabs open and maybe an app for the phone is not what I'm talking about. No, this was with a lot of tabs open, a lot of apps in use, and a lot of brightness, with 4-7 hours of use a day, depending on the room I'm in. If you intend to use this as a casual device, you may see the battery last for a few hours, but I can't keep my hands off it.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
The keyboard has been compared a lot to the keyboards on the Microsoft Surface series, but that's being too generous. The bar between the keyboard's POGO pin attachment and the actual keys is floppy, leaving the keyboard to slide around rather than neatly covering the keyboard when you have the Duet all folded up. The keyboard attachment on your lap can be awkward at times, but most of the time it will sit straight and flat.
Even if the keys are a little smaller, it's still better to keep the same proportions for the keyboard than to shrink some columns more than others. The keys on the Duet's keyboard are about 85% of the size they'd be on other Chromebooks keyboards, but the punctuation keys on the right side were different.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
If you're typing a lot of numbers that have a 0 or 9 and use a lot of brackets, you're going to find it hard to use the super-narrow keys for the first few weeks. If you're going to use a Duet as your only computer, I strongly recommend getting a full-size keyboard to use when you're at your desk; I have a mechanical keyboard hooked up to my super-small docking station, and it makes the Duet much more comfortable
The trackpad is small, but big enough to do my two-fingered right-clicks and three-fingered gestures. It's responsive, it's the right amount of clicky, and it does the job. I use the touchscreen most of the time because it's more intuitive, but I also use the trackpad when I need it.
Performance prowess and pitfalls of the laptop.
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The category is called
The IdeaPad Duet is a Chromebook.
There is a display.
The touchscreen is small.
1920x1200
400 nits.
A processor.
The P60T is from Mediatek.
There is memory.
4GB ofDDR4x.
There is storage.
The eMMc has a capacity of 64128GB.
There are ports.
1xusb-c
There are peripheral features.
The keyboard and kickstand are pre-bundled.
There is an optional stylus.
Audio.
Two speakers.
There is a battery.
7000mAh.
10 hours.
There are dimensions.
239.8 x 159.8 x 7.35mm
9.28" x 6.29"
The weight.
The tablets have a total of 430g and 0.94lb.
2.03 lbs with cover and keyboard.
The AUE Date is on the Gregorian calendar.
June of 2028.
The Duet is about as powerful as you'd expect for its price, but it's not as powerful as I'm used to. The Duet uses the MediaTek Helio P60T instead of the Intel Celeron N4000 that we've seen in the C340-11 and S340-14.
The P60T is capable enough for a tablet, but I wouldn't recommend it for full-time, full-bore work, especially if you spend a lot of time on video calls through the internet. This is not a daily driver, but a companion device. If the family computer is used, it can get work done, but it's more of a relaxing experience at home.
I've been using the Duet full-time since it arrived over a week ago, and 98% of the time, it works exactly as it should: it cruises along even with my usual 7-10 tabs open in Chrome, plus 1-2 Android apps in the background. It might hang during the initial load of a post on the internet, and it might miss a tap when I'm reading a fanfic, but otherwise it's fine. I'm not worried about the long-term performance because it crashed once in a call from the company and twice when loading a lot of tabs.
I've been able to work on a Duet just as well as any other Chromebooks, even though I think it would be cramped on a 10.1-inch screen. It's not a powerhouse, but it's enough for working all day and playing around at night, which is all I need from the Duet.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
The Duet was the first to get the new tab strip. I'm a big fan of it, and it's a slight adjustment, but it will come to all Chromebooks over time.
Where they cut corners.
Ara Wagoner is from the Android Central.
They had to pinch pennies because this is a $300 Chrome OS tablet with a kickstand and keyboard attachment in the box. There is only one port on the Duet that is capable of 18W (9V/2A) charging and a 30Hz video output, though you'll get bumped down further to 720p 60Hz on most monitors.
There's no second port on the opposite side of the tablet, the same thing we've seen on every Chromebook released in the last two years. 18W charging is annoying but manageable, especially since I can last 3-4 days on a charge even with 3-6 hours of use each day, but I really would have appreciated a second port.
The 10 watt in-box charger is a disappointment because it uses a cable that is not compatible with the other cable. Leave that charging point in the box as a "last resort" option. If you already have aPD in your home, use it for regular top-ups. If you don't have a Power Delivery charging station, the 20WAUKEY is the size of a quarter and will charge the Duet at top speed for the price of a large pizza.
The competition is for the Chromebook.
The Duet's announcement almost two years ago at the Consumer Electronics Show has led to manufacturers diving into the Chrome OS pool. The HP Chromebook x2 11 and the Duet 5 Chromebook are the best of the best. The Duet 5 has a larger screen, a full-size keyboard, and more RAM to go with the slightly more powerful Snapdragon 7c platform.
The magnetic kickstand in the box makes the Duet 5 feel less overwhelming than a large slate, unless you want to use it vertically. The option for 8GB of RAM is the most exciting upgrade for me after the magnetized keyboard. If tabs start to crash because your memory is full, you should be able to rock multiple windows at a time easily.
The HP Chromebook x2 11 is the premium reflection of the budget-minded excellence of theLenovo Duet. The Duet has a smaller screen and quad speakers, but the 11-inch 2K touchscreen and quad speakers make for a vastly improved video and music experience. The HP x2 11's keyboard is more similar to the Microsoft Surface Duo than the Duet models, making for a more stable typing experience when working from the couch or coach seating. The power button has a fingerprint sensor that allows for quicker unlocks when in tablet mode, but now I want every Chrome tablet to have one.
The list price for the HP Chromebook x2 11 is $600, and it comes with all the upgrades that HP made. The x2 11 is still much higher than what you can get a Duet for, but it can be knocked down to $400 by semi-regular sales.
You should buy it.
It's quite the small companion device.
The Duet is a device that can work hard when you need it, but gets out of the way when you just want to play games or watch movies. I'm not sure how many of us would want to use a 10.1-inch screen as our primary computer, but the Duet can hack it for my work, and I bet it can hack it for you.
The Duet is a companion device that you can use while the kids are hogging the family computer or you're in the backyard away from your desktop. The Duet is a battery-sipping beauty that may not be the sleekest or shiniest tablet around, but it's certainly the most practical. We need that even as we head into 2022, that's what we need.
When you need a quick report, a few dozen emails, and a good battery life, you can use the Chrome OS, even though it's not a full-fat operating system. It's not perfect, but it's close to $300, and with it getting eight years of regular updates, it's worth the test drive.
All of the Chrome OS is awesome.
The Duet gives us the kind of device we've wanted for a decade, with a bright screen, a good battery life, and a proper experience in both laptop and tablet modes.
The article was published in May 2020.
The following changes were made in December 2021.
Pricing has been updated to reflect recent sales.
The Competition section has been added to reflect the new options.
The changelog was added.
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